Daily Prayer

Saturday, 30 July 2005

Paul writes - Kevin Rains, one person (of a number) I’m looking forward to having a few beers and meals with one day up in his part of the world (or down here in NZ), has been “haunted” here by something Gordon Cosby (Church of the Saviour, Washington D.C.) said a few years ago:

Crosby said,

“That in all his years of service he has never (and he emphasized 'never') seen a group go from community to mission. Rather, he said one should organize around mission and community will follow. I'm paraphrasing but that is the basic idea.”

I remain convinced; given our post-Christendom times that Crosby is right! I’ve long been struck by the inordinate focus (time, financial resource, creativity etc) on the gathered Sunday experience of being church. There is little cultural engagement and little missional praxis. Sermon titles and themes invariably centre on the Sunday congregation and their needs, rather than serving to enable, inspire, and equip the church in it’s joining in on what God is doing in the world (the missio Dei).

Cosby’s statement is a radical one which turns most current notions of church on their head – it brings us back to a central question – “why does the church primarily exist, and how does its call to exist in this way shape its form, values, and practices?”

Friday, 29 July 2005

Paul writes - Last Friday (22nd July), New Zealand celebrated poetry – it was the Montana Poetry Day. I went to hear Kiwi Poet Anna Jackson read from her works. I was my first “live” poetry reading and I loved it. I discovered poetry is meant to be read out loud!

Jackson was brilliant, with wonderfully evocative word play. I’m now converted to multi-layered experience of poetry being read “live.” The experience is so much richer than my reading a poem off the page.

She framed each poetry selection with something of its story, and had a wonderful way of standing (one sleeve pulled up, arms crossed, poetry held in her right hand), moving (swaying, stepping, accompanying her poems)), and reading her poetry...I suspect the wonder of her voice was nerves (It could also be a type of stage-persona), but the effect was brilliant, raw, and evocative. She was animated (a kind of marionette) but not wild, and her voice – its breathlessness intonation, and nervous edge did some wonderful things to the words and the flow of the poem...BRILLIANT.

I was reminded of Jackson’s closing comments in a review of Christine Jeff’s film SYLVIA. She wrote, “Her [Plath] poetry might be shown to relate to her life, but [in the movie] it isn’t shown to have any relevance at all to ours. We are left as bewildered bystanders of a life and an art essentially irrelevant…”

We were not left as “bewildered bystanders.” Jackson drew us in and helped us make connections from her life to our own.

Here’s one of the poems she read – Johnny’s Minute (from her collection, Catullus for Children).

Thursday, 28 July 2005

Alan writes - Jesus welcomed children. He told his followers to welcome children. He had a child stand by him while the disciples argued about who was the greatest. As they argued his answer was obvious. He called the children to him when the disciples wanted to send them away. But most significantly in a culture that de-valued children he said “better to have a millstone tied round your neck than hurt one of these little ones” (see Matt 18v6; Mark 9v42; or Luke 17v2). His honouring, love, care and welcome to children was revolutionary.

Sadly children and the followers of Jesus are no longer automatically a safe combination. In New Zealand who would trust their child with a Christian leader? A legacy of love has turned into a legacy of abuse. It is time to grieve, to put on sack cloth and ashes. A time to repent on behalf of the churches. It is a time to bring in those who wail.Children’s homes, schools. Churches, youth groups, political parties, brigades, Sunday schools – sadly any Christian event with children has become suspicious. No, they have become more than suspicious! – they have become known as places of abuse. Tried and proven in court and broadcast by the media.

I remember meeting a senior staff member of the sex-offender’s unit in a national prison. Cynically he commented ‘there are more Christians here than the average church’. He was right - disgustingly so!

Wednesday, 27 July 2005

Paul writes - Although I’m currently completing a spiritual director training programme, I presently share some of Kenneth Leech’s concerns first aired in 1993 in an article he wrote for The Tablet in the UK. The article was titled: Is Spiritual Direction Losing Its Bearings?

“…I stand by my insistence in 1977 that spiritual direction is not essentially a ministry for specialists and professionals, but part of the ordinary pastoral ministry of every parish and every Christian community. Even more so do I stand by my suggestion that the role of "training" is extremely limited, and that this ministry is essentially a by-product of a life of prayer and growth in holiness. Part of our task is to discover, help, and affirm the work of direction which is already being done by unknown people who do not write books or run courses.

A whole chapter of "Soul Friend" [Great title – I love the emphasis on “friend”. Eugene Peterson has a wonderful little book, The Wisdom of Each Other: A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends, which develops the same sentiment – Spiritual direction as “friendship”] was devoted to trying to clarify the differences between spiritual direction, counselling, and psychotherapy, recognizing the significant areas of overlap. I am increasingly worried not only by the tendency in some quarters to blur these distinctions and to assimilate direction into a therapeutic model but also by the uncritical and simplistic adaptation of certain quasi-therapeutic tools…”

Leech’s column for The Tablet still resonates, perhaps more so in 2005. It is therefore well worth a read by those with an interest in the subject.

Richard Buck concludes a useful interaction with Leech’s text, Is Spiritual Direction Losing It’s Bearings? With the following words:

“Whether we agree or disagree with his analysis, he has put his finger on many crucial points that remain as important today as when he aired them. We ignore them at our peril.”

Tuesday, 26 July 2005

Paul writes - A great friend and fellow poetry-lover sent me the following poem yesteday…given my wonderings about staying here in Cambridge, I was drawn to Wendell Berry's ‘rootedness’ and sense of continuity with earlier generations; his sense of belonging to “this place” – his place.There’s a wonderful sense of aliveness and connectedness to something bigger…I dedicate it to the "holy ground" where each of us are all over the world.

Sunday, 24 July 2005

Alan Writes - Have you ever had a retreat experience wonderfully shaped and enriched by a book?

Recently, while on retreat, I was grappling with trying to see how Jesus related to people and therefore how we are to also relate to people. One of the monks (at the Cistercian Abbey) suggested, and loaned me a copy of Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World. I am very grateful Father Niko – thank you!

In this book Nouwen sets out to explain the core of the spiritual journey and what it means to meet the greatest human needs in a way that will be useful and understood by secular people. The book is born out of a friendship with a secular Jewish writer who asked Nouwen “Why don’t you write something about the spiritual life for me and my friends?” While he appreciated Henri’s previous writings he said it didn’t really help him or people like him. “It is good stuff,” he often said, “but not for me.” He felt strongly that his own experience and that of his friends required another tone, another language, another spiritual “wavelength.”

Saturday, 23 July 2005

Paul writes – Some may be wondering why you haven’t heard from Alan Jamieson for a while? It’s been school holidays down here and Alan has been taking a bit of a “breather” – some time out with family etc. Anyway, he’ll be back soon…

Note also that Jenny McIntosh (that's her down there) from Wellington (NZ) based Spirited Exchanges will be at Greenbelt this year. Drop by and say hello to her if you're fortunate to be there.

Down the left hand column you’ll find links to “interviews, articles, and essays by Alan” All are well worth a read.

You’ll also find links to the two excellent books that Alan has written – A Churchless Faith and Journeying in Faith.

You’ll also be able to see what Alan is, or has been reading.

In the right hand column you’ll find new category links – Post’s by Paul, and Posts by Alan. That should help more easily identify and locate material which we’ve each written. You will have noticed that each post is prefaced by either “Paul writes” or “Alan writes.”

Also in the right hand column you have contact e-mail details for myself and Alan. Feel free to drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.

The about us section has also been updated to give you a little background about us both.

Thanks for dropping by and adding your voice, perspective, and ideas to what Alan and I have written. We really appreciate it. We've learnt a lot from so many of you.

Friday, 22 July 2005

Paul writes - The following quote, taken out of context, has, from my perspective, some value with regards to encouraging that the “fruit of the Spirit” are displayed in current debates (sometimes hotly contested) about the so-called “emergent movement” and particularly for those on the emergent side of the debate who in many ways see themselves as a “prophetic” response to being church and Christians in the dramatically altered landscape of (post)modernity.

Perhaps it encourages us to be a little less sensitive, defensive, and combative, whether we’re (re)exploring new or sometimes ancient territory under the Emergent banner, or any other banner, for that matter…?

It might even encourage us to keep going back to the Jesus-stories…

“…There are times when Christians must act prophetically, ahead of the consensus, and that this is such a time for some of our number. We should listen with respect to what motivates this conviction. But we also have to say that it is in the very nature of a would-be prophetic act that we do not yet know whether it is an act of true prophecy or an expression of human feeling only. To claim to act prophetically is to take a risk. It would be strange if we claimed the right to act in a risky way and then protested because that risky act was not universally endorsed by the Church straight away…”